Drugs and prostitutes are plentiful on the street. It’s the truth that’s hard to come by.

Consider that when examining the case of convicted Las Vegas pimp Ocean Fleming. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 in substantial part on the dramatic testimony of his girlfriend, a meth-addicted prostitute named Jessica Gruda.

At trial, Gruda swore Fleming had roughed her up and tried to strangle her during a fight in 2011. It was a disturbing moment in the trial of the flesh peddler, who was convicted of pandering, kidnapping, assault and other felonies.

In a development emerging as part of Fleming’s attempt to win a new trial, Gruda not only has recanted her testimony -- something fairly common in pandering-related cases -- but she has implicated the lead Metro vice detectives and prosecutor in a scheme to manufacture testimony to ensure a conviction.

That may not bother you. Even if it eventually proves true, some people will write it off as the police and district attorney ridding the streets of one of society’s lowest forms of exploiter. That’s just the way it is in the real world, right?

Maybe. But Gruda’s Oct. 19, 2017 affidavit, secured by court-appointed defense attorney Janiece Marshall as part of Fleming’s appeal for a new trial, is pretty persuasive.

She describes how she met the vice detectives, Christopher Baughman and Albert Beas, in a local elementary school parking lot in 2011. They showed her a large file filled with photos of battered women they said had been victimized by Fleming.

The actions of Baughman, Beas and others are the subject of an FBI public corruption investigation, a fact first reported by KLAS I-Team investigator George Knapp. No longer with the police department, Baughman in court documents is accused of playing a central role in a scheme that enriched him while eliminating the competition of panderer Jamal Rashid, also known as “Mally Mall.”

“Detective Baughman told me that Ocean Fleming had hurt all of the women in the photographs and that Ocean would hurt me, too,” Gruda stated. “Given that these were police officers who were telling me that Ocean Fleming had hurt these women and given the photographs of what were significant injuries to women, I believed Detective Baughman and Beas and became extremely afraid of Ocean Fleming and agreed to provide information to the Detectives.”

The prostitute agreed to cooperate with the detectives and alleges she began having a sexual relationship with Beas. After a pair of altercations with Fleming, a drug-addicted Gruda agreed to testify against him.

At trial, the two incidents morphed into one altercation.

“Prior to testifying, I met with the Detectives and DA Liz Mercer to prepare my testimony for trial,” Gruda stated. “I never told the Detectives nor the prosecuting DA, Liz Mercer, that Ocean Fleming put his hands around my throat to strangle me.

“DA Mercer told me that Ocean would have had to have his hands around my throat when he dragged me out of Sarah Davey’s bedroom. DA Mercer told me that if I testified that Ocean had put his hands around my throat, strangling me, that she could put him away for a longer time and that I would not have to worry about Ocean ever getting out of prison to hurt me.”

At trial, she gave the testimony she was instructed to give. But the truth was, “At the time I testified, I had no recollection of Ocean ever strangling me,” she stated.

She didn’t mind lying on the witness stand. She said she believed Fleming was brutally violent because of those photographs. And there was something more: As trial approached, Gruda stated, they informed her Fleming was trying to have her killed.

“The Detectives showed me a handwritten piece of paper with my name and my Social Security number on it as proof of the ‘hit’ that Ocean had taken out against me,” she stated. “... I believed the Detectives when they told me that they knew Ocean was trying to kill me to prevent me from testifying against him.”

So, in order to keep herself and her young daughter safe from the vicious pimp, Gruda went on the witness stand and embellished her story.

Gruda’s revised statement is bolstered by two affidavits from Davey, her former roommate, who swears she witnessed the 2011 Fleming altercation and saw no strangulation.

“As the only eyewitness to the physical altercation between Jessica and Ocean, I know that Ocean did not place his hand around Jessica’s throat and was not strangling Jessica,” Davey stated in an October 2017 affidavit.

Trouble is, the detectives bent on making their case never interviewed the lone eyewitness.

But in 2017 the FBI and Metro did contact Davey “concerning Ms. Gruda’s relationships with Detective Beas and Detective Baughman.” She even submitted to a polygraph examination.

Seems simple enough. The only third-party witness to the Fleming-Gruda altercation, the self-described “best friend” and nanny for Gruda’s daughter, didn’t see any “strangulation” and wasn’t interviewed by Baughman, Beas or Mercer.

Perhaps they didn’t trust she’d tell the truth.

Or maybe they weren’t interested in hearing it.

 

 Contact John L. Smith at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.